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Planning your assignment

It is important to plan your approach to an assignment. It will ensure that you understand the task, can manage your time, and present a structured and focused argument.

For each assignment you should make time to:

interpret your assignment

create a schedule

plan your answer

Interpreting your assignment

Start by working out what you are being asked to do and what type of assignment you should produce.

Take time to understand the conventions of each type of assignment. You might be asked to produce a report, an essay, an annotated bibliography or a literature review. This will shape how you will research and write.

The next step is to analyse your question. Are you being asked to discuss, analyse or evaluate something? Instructional verbs in the assignment question will set out how you will approach the task.

Our interpreting assignments tutorial explains how to analyse different parts of the title and brief as well as what questions you need to consider before you start writing.

You can also download our understanding instructional verbs (PDF) help sheet, which offers a glossary of common words that you will find in your assignments, such as"analyse", "discuss", "compare" and "describe".

Creating a schedule

Planning your schedule before you begin an assignment will help you to ensure you have enough time to complete a high-quality piece of work.

Break down your assignment into manageable tasks and deadlines. As well as planning, these will include:

Use mind-maps: a visual planning method that helps you to quickly come up with ideas and make connections between those ideas. Look at this quick guide to mind mapping.

Use linear (list) plans: use headings,subheadings, and bullet points to plan your main ideas. This can be useful to plan out your writing paragraph by paragraph.

You can use a mixture of techniques. Perhaps a visual method when you are gathering initial ideas followed by a more structured plan before you start writing.

3. Use your plan to create a structure.

From your plan pick out the most relevant points. If you don't have any evidence to back up your points don't include them.

Think about what your reader needs to know. Whether you are writing a report, essay or another assignment, don't include too much background material. Ask yourself whether what you are writing answers the question or brief you have been set.

Consider in what order you need to present the information, arguments or points you want to make.

Plan in paragraphs, under headings or in sections to help you build a logical structure.